Field
This disclosure is generally related to distribution of digital content. More specifically, this disclosure is related to verifying the original producer of content in a content centric network (CCN) by using manifests that rename objects and include authentication information for the original producer.
Related Art
The proliferation of the Internet and e-commerce continues to create a vast amount of digital content. Content-centric network (CCN) architectures have been designed to facilitate accessing and processing such digital content. A CCN includes entities, or nodes, such as network clients, forwarders (e.g., routers), and content producers, which communicate with each other by sending Interest packets for various content items and receiving content object packets in return. CCN interests and content objects are identified by their unique names, which are typically hierarchically structured variable length identifiers (HSVLI). An HSVLI can include contiguous name components ordered from a most general level to a most specific level.
In addition to the identifying name and a payload, CCN content objects can include a signature for the content producer. The signature binds the name, payload, and identity of the signer (e.g., the producer). The name is used to match, route, and forward the content. In order to move or redistribute the content to serve the content from a location that is not reachable by the same name (e.g., from a web-cache location other than the one corresponding to the name), a system can either update the routing information or rename the content. However, updating the routing information can result in computational overhead due to modifying the routing tables (e.g., Forwarding Information Bases) at intermediate routers within a CCN. Furthermore, renaming the content breaks the binding security association between the unique name of the content and the authentication information of the producer (e.g., the signature and the identity), leaving a receiving CCN entity with no way to authenticate the original producer of the content.